The Hoverskiff!

[phdbilly]

Who: Kaylee Frye and Billy Buddy
Where: In the Workshop
When: Day after his thread with Elphaba
What: Billy wants to know more about the hoverskiff

Comments

[kay_lee_frye]

Kaylee had forgotten to close her drapes last night, and when you are used to sleeping in a windowless compartment in the middle of space, the sun rising and smacking you in the face bright and early tends to be an unwelcome wake up call. Shuffling over to the windows she shut the curtains and stumbled back to bed but it was too late. She was up

[kay_lee_frye]

Kaylee quickly put together that there was a lot more going on right now with Billy than she understood.

"Is someone tryin' to hurt you? Or... did you maybe hurt someone Billy?" she asked the soft soothing tone you might use when approaching an injured animal.

[phdbilly]

"No!" he said, shaking his head, "No one's trying to hurt me. I mean, I don't think they are... I just..." Taking a deep breath, he wondered why he was even talking to her about this.

Probably because she just seemed so nice so far. "I... there may have been an incident. I don't like thinking about it," he muttered, leaning back against the hoverskiff, finding comfort in it's noise.

[kay_lee_frye]

"It's okay. I understand, sometimes these things happen," Kaylee responded nonjudgmentally.

She didn't know exactly what Billy's incident was, but she had been involved in plenty of incidents of her own over the years as part of the crew of Serenity, that she was certainly in no position to judge. And Billy certainly seemed remorseful.

[phdbilly]

"It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been there," he muttered softly, frowning as he looked up at her. "That's always it, isn't it? The what if game... what if you hadn't been there at that time, would it still have the same outcome? Or am I the only one who thinks that?" he asked, wanting desperately for her to agree with him.

[kay_lee_frye]

"No, you definitely ain't the only one," she agreed quickly. "Those are the kinds of questions that keep folks up at night. But that's all their good for. But playin' what if don't change nothin'. Just tortures yourself."

[phdbilly]

No, it wouldn't change anything. "What if you deserve that?" Billy mumbled, sighing deeply. Thinking it would make him remember, and he wanted to remember, wanted to... not forget because that would make everything meaningless. Pulling his legs up to his chest he rested his chin on them.

"Ever seen a time machine?"

[kay_lee_frye]

Kaylee was going to respond to Billy's first question, but was completely side tracked by his second.

"What? A time machine? No... Have you?" she asked curiously.

[phdbilly]

Billy shook his head. "No, but I have frozen time before. Not time itself, but a person, frozen them in time. That didn't work out so well... But I did have it working. I could reverse the principles, use those to make time reverse itself instead of freeze." He'd been thinking about it for a very long time, but had never really put the project into motion.

[kay_lee_frye]

Kaylee gaped at Billy for a moment. "You can freeze people and time and you think this is impressive?" she asked disbelievingly, gesturing to the skiff they were standing on.

[phdbilly]

"Well this seems to actually be working," he muttered. "I don't really do... cars, or vehicles that make... movements." No, that stem of his inventing had been stopped quite quickly. "Theory I understand, but it's more particle physics, and chemical engineering than... an engine."

[kay_lee_frye]

"Yeah, see I don't know nothin' about anything like that," Kaylee admitted. "I ain't got any formal training even where engines are concerned side's what my Daddy taught me. Everything else I just sorta figure out for myself. Ships and engines and machines, they just sorta speak to me."

[phdbilly]

"I usually have a couple prototypes before I find something that works," he admitted, though prototypes was being used as a code word for fail experiments. "It would depend how the time machine works- it can move itself and anyone in it through space and time, or it can move the person in it through space and time. I've almost got both aspects figured out in real time... an entire device that moves might be better. Then you'd theoretically be able to get back. But something like that would need an engine..." and he was rambling.

"Right," he said, conscious of his verbal onslaught. "What were we talking about?"